Mindfulness and meditation are becoming pop culture buzzwords. But it isn’t just about hearing, seeing, or observing a particular feeling; it’s about doing so in a certain way — with balance and equanimity, and without judgment. Our columnist Sharon Salzberg walks us through the deeper case for mindful attention.

Forgiving yourself for your stupid mistakes can be really difficult. By doing so, though, Courtney Martin argues that you will not only honor those who love you deeply and you will stop beating yourself up in the process.

Who you're going to be and what you're going to become takes time. But, nowadays, getting educated has an extraordinary set of expectations for students. Omid Safi reminds us that students need to be gentle with themselves as they discover what it means to be a human being and not just a human doing.

We are born baffled. Acknowledging this can be key to becoming a writer or a person who seeks to understand the world around you better. Parker Palmer muses on a writing life and distills his experience into three principles of living deeply and richly within this world.

Though we are taught to forgive from childhood, it is not always so easy to do. A daughter reflects on the burden of her father's perfectionism, the freedom of forgiveness, and the gifts of imperfection.

Exhausted and frazzled, we must look to the skies and draw on the wisdom of winged nature to rediscover a resilience in community and a reliance on one another. Sometimes it's not about leading, but drafting. With the insights of Rilke, a post on beauty in limitation, wisdom in rest, and resilience in dependence.

When we get too attached to habits, we risk losing our sense of wonder and our potential for catalytic experience. Courtney Martin's encouragement for the job of being alive: “May I see what I do. May I do it differently. May I make this a way of life.”

A story from Rumi's masterpiece Masnavi illuminates the paths we all travel from brokenness to healing, from spiritually feeling worthless and cut off to being wholehearted. In the wisdom of the saints, Omid Safi reveals the goal of the spiritual path: not reaching divinity, but achieving full humanity.

Our children's relationship with food builds off their relationship with themselves. A Seattle pediatrician "awakens" to another approach to caring for children and families struggling with obesity by diving into her own mindfulness and meditation.

The recent suicide of Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich has many discussing the bullying nature of politics. In a powerful sermon by former U.S. Senator John Danforth, he calls for an end to what politics has become.

A winding path that flows from experiencing the grace of wholeness and seeking the ineffable to seeing the hidden systems in plain sight, and the otherness and belonging necessary for all of us to thrive.